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The Thief and the Cobbler (1995)
The Avengers Meets The Thief and the Cobbler The film opens with a narrator describing a prosperous city called the Golden City, which is ruled by the sleepy King Nod and protected by three golden balls positioned atop its tallest minaret. According to a prophecy, the city would fall to a race of warlike, one-eyed monsters referred to as "one-eyes" should the balls be removed, and could only be saved by "the simplest soul with the smallest and simplest of things". Living in the city are a humble and good-hearted cobbler named Tack and a nameless, unsuccessful yet persistent thief. Both characters are mute and have no dialogue. The thief tries to rob Tack, leading to a scuffle that causes Tack's tacks to fall out onto the street while Zigzag, King Nod's rhyming Grand Vizier, walks through it. Zigzag steps on one of the tacks and orders Tack to be arrested while the thief escapes. Tack is brought before King Nod and his beautiful daughter, Princess Yum-Yum, who takes a mutual liking to Tack. Before Zigzag can convince Nod to have Tack executed, Yum-Yum saves Tack by breaking one of her shoes and ordering Tack to fix it. While repairing her shoe, Tack and Yum-Yum become increasingly attracted to each other, leaving Zigzag, who lusts after Yum-Yum and plots to take over the kingdom by marrying her, intensely jealous. Meanwhile, the thief notices the golden balls atop the minaret and decides to steal them. After breaking into the palace through a gutter, the thief steals the repaired shoe from Tack, leading the cobbler to chase him through the palace. Upon retrieving the shoe, Tack bumps into Zigzag, who notices the shoe is fixed and takes the opportunity to lock Tack in a prison cell. The next morning, Nod has a vision of the Golden City's doom at the hands of the one-eyes. While Zigzag tries to convince Nod of the kingdom's security under the protection of the golden balls, the thief manages to steal the balls after several failed attempts, only to lose them to Zigzag's minions. Tack escapes from his cell using his cobbling tools during the ensuing panic. Nod notices the balls' disappearance after being warned of the one-eyes by a dying soldier, who was mortally wounded during an attack against them. Zigzag attempts to use the stolen balls to blackmail the king into letting him marry Yum-Yum. When Nod refuses, Zigzag defects to the one-eyes and gives them the balls instead. Nod sends Yum-Yum, her nanny, and Tack on a journey to ask for help from a "mad, holy old witch" who lives in the desert. They are secretly followed by the thief, who hears of treasures on the journey but has no success stealing any. They also meet a band of dimwitted brigands in the desert whom Yum-Yum declares as her royal guard. The protagonists reach the hand-shaped tower where the witch lives, and learn from the witch that Tack is the one prophesied to save the Golden City. The witch also presents a riddle: "Attack, attack, attack! A tack, see? But it's what you do with what you've got!" The protagonists return to the Golden City to find the one-eyes' massive war machine approaching. Remembering the witch's riddle, Tack shoots a single tack into the enemy's midst, sparking a Goldberg-esque chain reaction that causes the war machine to slowly collapse and destroy the entire one-eye army. Zigzag tries to escape, but falls into a pit where he is eaten alive by alligators and his mistreated pet vulture Phido. The thief, avoiding many deathtraps, steals the golden balls from the collapsing machine, only to have them taken away from him by Tack, after which the thief finally gives up and lets Tack have them. With peace restored and the prophecy fulfilled, the city celebrates as Tack and Yum-Yum marry; before they kiss, Tack speaks for the first and only time in the film, saying "I love you" to Yum-Yum in a deep voice. The film ends with the thief stealing the entire reel of film and running away.